Commentary

— Canto 1 —

Lines 1-4:     I was the shadow of the waxwing slain, etc.
Line 12:     that crystal land
Line 17:     And then the gradual
Line 27:     Sherlock Holmes
Lines 34-35:     Stilettos of a frozen stillicide
Lines 39-40:     Was close my eyes, etc.
Line 42:     I could make out
Lines 47-48:     the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith
Line 49:     shagbark
Line 57:     The phantom of my little daughter's swing
Line 61:     TV's huge paperclip
Line 62:     often
Line 70:     The new TV
Line 71:     parents
Line 79:     a preterist
Line 80:     my bedroom
Line 85:     Who’d seen the Pope
Lines 86-90:     Aunt Maud
Lines 90-93:     Her room, etc.
Line 91:     trivia
Line 92:     the paperweight
Line 98:     On Chapman’s Homer
Line 101:     No free man needs a God
Line 109:     iridule
Line 119:     Dr. Sutton
Lines 120-121:     five minutes were equal to forty ounces, etc.
Line 130:     I never bounced a ball or swung a bat
Lines 131-132:     I was the shadow of the waxwing slain by the feigned remoteness in the windowpane.
Line 137:     lemniscate
Line 143:     a clockwork toy
Line 149:     one foot upon a mountain
Line 162:     With his pure tongue, etc.

— Canto 2 —

Line 167:     There was a time, etc.
Line 169:     survival after death
Line 171:     A great conspiracy
Line 172:     books and people
Line 181:     Today
Lines 181-182:     waxwings...cicadas
Line 189:     Starover Blue
Line 209:     gradual decay
Lines 213-214:     a syllogism
Line 230:     a domestic ghost
Line 231:     How ludicrous, etc.
Line 238:     empty emerald case
Line 240:     That Englishman in Nice
Line 246:     ...my dear
Line 247:     Sybil
Line 270:     My dark Vanessa
Line 275:     We have been married forty years
Line 286:     A jet's pink trail above the sunset fire
Line 287:     humming as you pack
Line 293:     She
Line 316:     The Toothwort White haunted our woods in May
Line 319:     wood duck
Line 334:     Would never come for her
Line 347:     old barn
Lines 347-348:     She twisted words
Lines 367-370:     then--pen, again--explain
Line 376:     poem
Lines 376-377:     was said in English Litt to be
Line 384:     book on Pope
Lines 385-386:     Jane Dean, Pete Dean
Lines 403-404:     it's eight fifteen (And here time forked)
Line 408:     A male hand
Line 413:     a nymph came pirouetting
Lines 417-421:     I went upstairs, etc.
Line 426:     Just behind (one oozy footstep) Frost
Line 431:     March night...headlights from afar approached
Line 433-434:     To the...sea Which we had visited in thirty-three
Line 469:     his gun
Line 470:     Negro
Line 475:     A watchman, Father Time
Line 490:     Exe
Line 493:     She took her poor young life

— Canto 3 —

Line 501:     L'if
Line 502:     The grand potato
Line 502:     IPH
Line 549:     While snubbing gods including the big G
Line 550:     debris
Lines 557-558:     How to locate in blackness, with a gasp, Terra the Fair, an orbicle of jasp
Line 579:     the other
Line 584:     The mother and the child
Line 596:     Points at the puddle in his basement room
Line 597-608:     the thoughts we should roll-call, etc.
Line 603:     Listen to distant cocks crow
Lines 609-614:     Nor can one help, etc.
Lines 615:     two tongues
Line 619:     tuber's eye
Line 627:     The great Starover Blue
Line 629:     The fate of beasts
Line 662:     Who rides so late in the night and the wind
Lines 671-672:     The Untamed Seahorse
Line 678:     into French
Line 680:     Lolita
Line 681:     Gloomy Russians spied
Line 682:     Lang
Line 691:     the attack
Line 697:     Conclusive destination
Lines 704-707:     A system, etc.
Lines 727-728:     No, Mr. Shade...just half a shade
Lines 734-735:     probably...wobble...limp blimp...unstable
Line 741:     the outer glare
Lines 747-748:     a story in a magazine about a Mrs. Z.
Line 768:     address
Line 782:     your poem
Line 802:     mountain
Line 803:     a misprint
Line 810:     a web of sense
Line 819:     Playing a game of worlds
Line 822:     killing a Balkan king
Line 830:     Sybil, it is

— Canto 4 —

Lines 835-838:     Now I shall spy, etc.
Lines 841-872:     two methods of composing
Line 873:     My best time
Lines 887-888:     Since my biographer may be too staid or know too little
Line 894:     a king
Lines 895-899:     The more I weigh....or this dewlap
Line 920:     little hairs stand on end
Line 922:     held up by Our Cream
Line 929:     Freud
Line 934:     big trucks
Line 937:     Old Zembla
Lines 939-940:     Man's life, etc.
Line 949:     And all the time
Line 949:     And all the time
Line 957:     Night Rote
Line 962:     Help me, Will. Pale Fire.
Line 991:     horseshoes
Lines 993-995:     A dark Vanessa, etc.
Line 998:     Some neighbor's gardener
Line 1000:     [=Line 1: I was the shadow of the waxwing slain]